Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Draft by SSBohio

This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia articles can affect real people's lives. This gives us an ethical and legal responsibility. Biographical material must be written with the greatest care and attention to verifiability, neutrality and avoiding original research, particularly if it is contentious.

Editors must take particular care adding biographical material about a living person to any Wikipedia page. Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity, and must adhere strictly to the law in Florida, United States. Wikipedia is an international, top-ten website, which means that material we publish about living people can affect their lives and the lives of their families, colleagues, and friends. Biographical material must therefore be written with strict adherence to our content policies:

We must get the article right.^[1] Be very firm about the use of high quality references. Contentious material (negative, positive, or just questionable) that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles,^[2] talk pages, user pages, and project space.^{[citation needed]}

Biographies of living persons (BLPs) must be written conservatively with regard to the subject's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid; it is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives. An important maxim when writing biographical material about living persons is to "do no harm", whether to the article's subject or to other living people dealt with in the article.

Real people are involved, and they can be hurt by your words. We are not tabloid journalism, we are an encyclopedia.

–Jimmy Wales ^[3]

The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia, but especially for edits about living persons, rests firmly on the shoulders of the person who adds or restores the material. If, either as an editor or a subject, you have concerns about biographical material about a living person in Wikipedia, please feel free to address the issue by editing the article, or report your concerns on the BLP noticeboard so that another editor may attend to the article.

This policy applies to all living persons in an entry, not merely the subject of the entry.^[4]

Writing and editing

Shortcut

WP:BLPSTYLE

Writing style

Biographies of living people should be written responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone. While a strategy of eventualism may apply to other subject areas, poorly written biographies of living persons should be reduced to a stub or deleted outright, if need be. Even in otherwise well-written articles, care should be taken to remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material.

The article should document, from a neutral point of view, what reliable third party sources have published about the subject and, in some circumstances, what the subject may have published about themselves. Writing should be of a factual style, avoiding both understatement and overstatement. Biographies of living persons should not have trivia sections. Instead, relevant sourced information should be woven into the section of the article to which it applies.

External links

External links in biographies of living persons must be of high quality and in full compliance with our policies and specifically our external links guidelines.

Criticism

The views of critics should be represented if they are relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, or to the biographical subject him- or her-self. Such material must be written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to take sides; rather, it needs to be presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone.

Be careful not to give an inordinate amount of space to critics or to fans, to avoid the effect of representing a minority view as if it were the majority one. If the criticism represents the views of a tiny minority, it may have no place in the article. Care must be taken with article structure to ensure that the overall presentation is neutral, in particular, heading structure for regions or subsections should reflect important areas to the subject's notability and not disproportionately call attention to miority perspectives, positive or negative.

Content should be attributed to reliable sources and should address the subject of the article specifically. Be wary of claims that rely on guilt by association. Editors should also be on the lookout for biased content about living persons, whether malicious or sympathetic. If an editor appears to be pushing an agenda or a biased point of view, it's especially important to insist on reliable third-party published sources and a clear demonstration of relevance to the person's notability.

Sources

Reliable sources

Material about living persons must be well-sourced. Without careful selection of reliable third-party sources, it will tend to violate our No original research and Verifiability policies, and could lead to claims of libel or defamation.

Material about living persons available solely in questionable sources should be handled with great caution, and, if derogatory, should ordinarily not be used at all in biographies of living people, either as sources or via external links (see above). Self-published books, zines, websites, and blogs should never be used as a source for material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article (see below).

Editors should avoid repeating gossip. An editor must test whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to an encyclopedia article about the subject. Watch for weasel phrases which are often used when sources print material they suspect is untrue. If the original source doesn't believe its own story, then it would be a disservice both to the reader and the subject to present it as true in Wikipedia.

Editors should also be careful of a feedback loop in which an unsourced and speculative contention in a Wikipedia article gets picked up, with or without attribution, in an otherwise-reliable newspaper or other media story, and that story is then cited in the Wikipedia article to support the original speculative contention.

Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material

Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced, relies upon sources that are not verifiable, or is a conjectural interpretation of sourced information, a kind of original research. The three-revert rule does not apply to such removals if the information is derogatory. Content may be re-inserted only if it conforms to all content policies.

I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.^[2]

–Jimmy Wales

Administrator enforcement of removals

These principles apply to biographical material about living persons found anywhere in Wikipedia, including user and talk pages. Administrators may generally enforce the removal of such material with page protection and editors who re-insert the material without addressing the issues that led to its removal may be warned and blocking policy|blocked, within the bounds of this and other policies.

Administrators encountering contentious unsourced biographies (whether negative or positive in tone) should speedily delete the article without discussion when there is no neutral version to which to revert.

Using the subject as a source

Self-published material ordinarily may not be used in BLPs unless written by the subject him or herself. Subjects may provide material about themselves through press releases, personal websites, blogs, or other means. Material that has been self-published by the subject may be added to the article if:

it is not contentious;
it is not unduly self-serving;
it does not make unsubstantiated claims about third parties;
there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it; and
the article is not solely or predominately based upon such sources.

These provisions do not apply to subjects' published autobiographies; these, when published by reliable third-party publishing houses or in other reliable publications, can be treated as reliable sources, as they are not self-published.

A blog or personal website self-published by the subject may always be listed in the external links/further reading section if labelled as such.

Dealing with edits by the subject of the article

In some cases the subject may become involved in editing the article, either directly or through a representative. While Wikipedia discourages people from writing new articles about themselves or expanding existing ones significantly, subjects of articles are welcome to remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material.

Jimmy Wales has warned editors to think twice when encountering such attempts:

"... reverting someone who is trying to remove libel about themselves is a horribly stupid thing to do."

–Jimmy Wales ^[5]

Anonymous edits that blank all or part of a biography of a living person should be evaluated carefully. When the subject is of ambiguous notability, such edits should not be regarded as vandalism in the first instance, and recent changes patrollers should bear in mind that they may be dealing with the subject. The use of inflammatory edit summaries or vandalism-related talk-page templates should be avoided if a good faith explanation of the page blanking could be made.

The Arbitration Committee has ruled in favor of showing leniency to the subjects of biographies who try to remove what they see as errors or unfair material:

For those who either have or might have an article about themselves it is a temptation, especially if plainly wrong, or strongly negative information is included, to become involved in questions regarding their own article. This can open the door to rather immature behavior and loss of dignity. It is a violation of don't bite the newbies to strongly criticize users who fall into this trap rather than seeing this phenomenon as a newbie mistake.
— Arbitration Committee decision (December 18, 2005)^[6]

Presumption in favor of privacy

An important rule of thumb when writing biographical material about living persons is to "do no harm". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and as such it is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives. Biographies of living people must be written conservatively, with due regard for the subject's privacy.

When writing about a person notable only for one or two events, including every detail can lead to problems, even when the material is well-sourced. In the best case, it can lead to an unencyclopedic article. In the worst case, it can be a serious violation of our policies on neutrality. When in doubt, biographies should be pared back to a version that is completely sourced, neutral, and on-topic. This avoids giving undue weight to supporters or detractors of the article's subject.

Bona fide public figures

In the case of significant public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources to take material from, and Wikipedia biographies should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented by reliable published sources, it belongs in the article — even if it's negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If it is not documented by reliable third-party sources, it should, in most cases, be best left out.

Example: "John Doe had a messy divorce from Jane Doe." Is it important to the article, and has it been published by third-party reliable sources? If not, leave it out.

Example: A politician is alleged to have had an affair. He denies it, but the New York Times publishes the allegations, and there is a public scandal. The allegation may belong in the biography, citing the New York Times as the source.

Use great care in using material from primary sources. For example, public records that include personal details--such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses--or trial transcripts and other court records or public documents should be avoided, unless a reliable secondary source has already cited them. Where primary source material has first been referred to by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to turn to such material to augment the secondary source, as long as no original research is done. See also Wikipedia:Verifiability.

People who are relatively unknown

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WP:NPF

Wikipedia also contains biographies of people who, while notable, are not generally well known. In such cases, editors should exercise good judgment and include only material relevant to their notability. Material from third-party primary sources should not be used unless it has first been referenced by a reliable secondary source. Material published by the subject may be used, but only with caution. (See Using the subject as a source).

Material that may adversely affect a person's reputation should be treated with special care. In the laws of many countries, simply repeating the defamatory claims of another is illegal, and there are special protections for people who are not public figures. Any such potentially damaging information about a private person, if corroborated by multiple reliable sources, may be cited. Potentially damaging allegations in such sources may only be cited if the Wikipedia article makes clear that Wikipedia is not making the allegations, and without the Wikipedia article taking a position on their truth. When in doubt, provide more sourced information and allow the reader to form a complete picture and draw his or her own conclusion.

Personally-identifiable information

Editors should take particular care when considering whether inclusion of the personally-identifiable information of private, living individuals who are not directly involved in an article's topic adds significant value. The presumption in favor of the privacy of uninvolved family members of articles' subjects and other loosely involved persons without independent notability is correspondingly stronger. Likewise, there is a stronger presumption of privacy on behalf of tangentially-involved minors, such as the children of article subjects.

In all cases where the redaction of personally-identifiable information is considered, editors should be willing to discuss the issue on the article's talk page while keeping the information confidential unless and until consensus emerges to include it in the article.

Name

Caution should be applied when naming individuals who are discussed primarily in terms of a single event. When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed (such as in court cases & mainstream media accounts), it is preferable to omit it, especially when doing so results in only an insignificant loss of context. When evaluating the inclusion or removal of names, their publication in secondary sources other than news media, such as scholarly journals or the work of recognized experts, should be strongly considered in contrast to brief appearance of names in news stories or other more impermanent sources.

Contact information

Wikipedia articles shall not include addresses, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, or other contact information for living persons, except in extraordinary cases, such as where the information figures prominently in the narrative of the article. Links to websites maintained by or on behalf of the subject are generally permitted.

Date of birth

Wikipedia includes dates of birth for some living persons where the dates have been widely published, but editors should exercise caution with less notable people. Except in cases where the subject's date of birth or age figures prominently in the narrative of the article, deference should be given to the subject's expressed wishes.

With identity theft on the rise, people increasingly regard date of birth as private. When in doubt about the notability or relevence of the information, or if the subject complains about the publication of his or her date of birth, editors should err on the side of caution and simply list the year or month and year of birth, depending on the needs of the article.

Preventing BLP violations

When in doubt, biographies should be reverted back to a version that is sourced, neutral, and on-topic. In cases where the BLP violation is egregious or contains personally-identifiable information, administrators should delete the versions necessary to remove the offending material. Due care should be exercised to preserve non-violating revisions whenever possible, in the interest of not biting good-faith contributors unnecessarily. In all such deletions, administrators must preserve the edit history due to copyright and GFDL considerations, even if the underlying revisions must be deleted.

Semi-protection and protection

Administrators who believe there to have been malicious or biased editing, positive or negative, or who have reason to believe that this policy may otherwise be violated, may protect or semi-protect the page after removing the disputed material in order to prevent its re-addition.

BLP deletion standards

When closing a deletion discussion about living persons whose notability is ambiguous, the closing administrator should take into account whether the subject of the article being deleted has asked that it be deleted. There is no consensus about how much weight editors should give those wishes; in that matter the closing administrator may exercise discretion. After the deletion of a biography of a living person, editors should consider moving data to another article, but they must bear in mind that this policy applies equally to all pages of Wikipedia, not just to articles where a living person is the subject; editors should not move material from a deleted biography of a living person solely as a means to thwart the intent of the page deletion. Also, when merging content from a biography of a living person, editors must preserve the edit history due to copyright and GFDL considerations.

Disputed deletions

Administrators should obtain consensus before undeleting material that has been deleted under this policy, and wherever possible, disputed deletions should be discussed with the administrator who deleted the article. The deleting administrator must be willing to explain the deletion to other Wikipedians, by e-mail if the material is sensitive; administrators and other editors who object to the deletion should bear in mind that the deleting administrator may be aware of issues that others are not; However, this should not be interpreted as giving blanket permission for deletions based on secret evidence. Disputes may be taken to deletion review, but protracted public discussion should be avoided for deletions involving sensitive information about living persons.

Courtesy blanking of deletion discussions

If a biography of a living person is deleted through an Articles for Deletion (AfD) discussion, the AfD page and any subsequent deletion review that fails may be blanked as a courtesy or deleted entirely if there is inappropriate commentary, though such deletion isn't formally required by current policy.^[7] Such a deleted page may be protected against recreation under our policy on page protection.

Blocking

Editors who repeatedly add or restore unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons (whether positive or negative) may be warned and/or blocked. See the blocking policy.

Templates to use with BLP issues

{{Blp}} may be added to the talk pages of biographies of living persons so that editors and readers, including subjects, are alerted to this policy. It also may be added to the talk pages of articles which mention living persons. Alternatively, if a {{WPBiography}} template is present, you can add living=yes to the template parameters.

For problems with people violating BLP, you can use these templates:

{{uw-biog1}}
{{uw-biog2}} or {{blp0}}
{{uw-biog3}} or {{blp1}}
{{uw-biog4}} or {{blp2}}
{{blp3}} for when a block is issued

{{Blpdispute}} may be used on pages needing attention. {{BLPsources}} may be used on BLP pages needing better sourcing.

Non-article space

As the introduction says:

Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space.

Talk pages

Talk pages are used to make decisions about article contents. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material not related or useful to making article content choices should be deleted, and history deleted if especially problematic (telephone number, libel, etc). In the most extreme circumstances, content may be oversighted.

Forseeably (or previously) contentious additions should be discussed before insertion into the article in order to arrive at a consensus concerning relevance, availability of sources, and reliability of sources. Repeated questionable claims with BLP issues not based on new evidence can generally be immediately deleted with a reference to where in the archive the prior consensus was reached, but editors and administrators should remain alert to shifts in consensus over time.

User and User talk pages

The rules for talk pages also apply for user pages with the single exception that it is customary to allow the user to make any claim they wish about themselves without sources in their user space (see Wikipedia:Credentials and its talk page). All user pages, must nonetheless, conform to our policies, such as "Wikipedia:what Wikipedia is not," ruling out their use as advertisements, for example. Editors are prohibited from impersonating another individual.

Project (Wikipedia) pages

In project space, we maintain information about users that we need to make administrative choices. These pages are visible to everyone for the sake of openness and transparency, which is essential to the success and health of the WikiMedia mission. Usernames at wikipedia are often associated with off-wikipedia identities and negative comments, especially if true, can be the source of difficulties. It helps both the people behind these identities and Wikipedia itself if this information is dealt with thoughtfully, carefully, creatively, and with great care, particularly in edge cases. Unbiased people can work to build consensus with people who are dissatisifed with the status quo to achieve mutually beneficial results.

Dealing with articles about yourself

If you have a query regarding an article about yourself, you can contact Wikipedia via email. Alternatively, please refer the editors on the page to this policy. If you need help enforcing the policy, ask for help on the BLP noticeboard, or contact an administrator; see Wikipedia:List of administrators.

Designated agent

The designated agent for Wikipedia is:

Jimmy Wales, Designated Agent
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
146 2nd St N, # 310
St. Petersburg FL 33701
United States
Facsimile number: +1(727)258-0207

E-mails may also be sent to:

More contact options

Notes

^ Jimmy Wales. Keynote speech, Wikimania, August 2006.
^ ^a ^b Jimmy Wales. "WikiEN-l Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", May 16, 2006 and May 19, 2006
^ . "WikiEN-l Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", May 19, 2006
^ Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden: "WP:BLP applies to all living persons mentioned in an article"
^ Jimmy Wales. "WikiEN-l Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", May 19, 2006
^ Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rangerdude#Mercy: "3) Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers, a guideline, admonishes Wikipedia users to consider the obvious fact that new users of Wikipedia will do things wrong from time to time. For those who either have or might have an article about themselves it is a temptation, especially if plainly wrong, or strongly negative information is included, to become involved in questions regarding their own article. This can open the door to rather immature behavior and loss of dignity. It is a violation of don't bite the newbies to strongly criticize users who fall into this trap rather than seeing this phenomenon as a newbie mistake. Passed 6-0-1"
^ "...In the meantime, it is my position that MOST AfD pages for living persons or active companies should be courtesy blanked (at a minimum) as a standard process, and deleted in all cases where there was inappropriate commentary. This is not the current policy, but currenty policy does allow for deletions of material which is potentially hurtful to people." --Jimbo Wales 01:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)